His reelection is an indication that America has changed. He could be the perfect leader to take the country down a new path. A path I certainly had no intenion of going down, but I&#8217;m only one vote. Voting – exactly what makes this a free country – has just chosen to become less free.

I wasn't surprised that Obama won. I was surprised that he took every single swing state in the process. Romney just ran a horrible campaign. The economy sucks and Obama successfully blamed Bush for it even though he's been in office for 4 years, none of it is his fault. Obama was completely beatable. He ran on Hope and Change in 2008 and delivered none of that. His biggest achievement amounts to a tax hike on the middle class. The Republicans respond by running a completely spineless candidate who ran a horrible campaign. I think Obama was helped by Sandy as well. Romney got shoved to the back burner and really couldn't say anything at all without making himself look bad. Obama got all the air time and looked presidential in the process.

Romney really didn't know what to say to ordinary people, those who make a lot less than $200,000 per year.

Ohio and the auto bailout, Romney said he wasn't for bailouts.Hurricane Sandy, this put a damper on Romney's roll he was building for awhile.Defining Romney, was heard dismissing "47%" of Americans who either don't pay taxes or live off government assistance.Former presidents, Bush & Clinton. Both helped Obama more than Romney.Osama bin Laden, we know how this helped Obama.

Both of them said middle class was $200,000. Both of them are out of touch with the middle class. The median household income in the US is ~$45k. The fact that both candidates even tossed around the $200,000 number just shows how out of touch both candidates really are.

The auto bailout was a bad idea. If companies are too big to fail they need to either fail or be broken up. It was a bad idea because it didn't fix the long term problem. There will be a need to bail out the auto industry again in a decade or so and all because they weren't allowed to fail.

Sandy definitely helped Obama. Romney had been building momentum and Sandy just killed it.

Romney failed to get his message across and he let Obama paint him as a horrible rich guy who was horrible just because he was rich. That was his fatal mistake IMO.

Without the auto bailout, there would probably only be one American car maker right now, (Ford) and how many more jobs lost that of course you guys would have loved to have pinned on Obama. Plus most of the money has already been paid back. Priceless investment in our country.

The 47% comments came out of The Horrible Rich Guy's mouth, not Obama's (rich also, by the way). He only has himself to blame for being a terrible candidate.

No. They wouldn't have gone completely out of business. They would've gone bankrupt and been forced to re-organize. It's not a priceless investment when we'll end up bailing them all out again in 10-15 years because the way they do business doesn't work.

Looks to me like status quo. Nothing got done the past 3+ years. Same will hold true if one or both sides don't learn how to compromise. The best thing Republicans can do is reach across the isle and get some important work done with Obama and the Democrats. A divided country is not a healthy country.

Markets reaction to the Obama re-election was to post it's biggest loss of the year. Good times.

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The stock market more than doubled since he took office, so I wouldn't read too much into one day. I think the recovery will speed up now that the election is over, and would have if Romney had won as well. I think a lot of things were in a holding pattern just waiting for the election to be over.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

Beyond race millions across lines of color believe their future is bleak and the America Dream and hope for ever-increasing prosperity is slipping from their grasps. The power of the One Percent Super Rich versus the suffering of the masses of the 99 Percent remains on a collision course. Depressed wages, high unemployment, evaporating investments, assaults on the rights of workers and no such thing as job security are driving more and more Americans to the edge&#8212;not to mention growing poverty, homelessness and a general sense that the country has a hard road ahead. There is a legitimate notion that everyone is one their own.

Beyond race millions across lines of color believe their future is bleak and the America Dream and hope for ever-increasing prosperity is slipping from their grasps. The power of the One Percent Super Rich versus the suffering of the masses of the 99 Percent remains on a collision course. Depressed wages, high unemployment, evaporating investments, assaults on the rights of workers and no such thing as job security are driving more and more Americans to the edge

If people believe their future is bleak it's because they've spent too much time staring at a TV set and not looking at reality. You are on your own. It's always been that way. You make your own success.

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It's very easy to say when the bleak future doesn't effect you. It has nothing to do with watching tv. Of course we all are on our own. It depends on how you measure success. Having lots of money may be success for you, while having a wife and kids could mean success for me.

I have just accepted the situation. Unsure if its what I would have chosen (I didn't have much faith in either candidate) but I was decently sure Romney could not have reversed Obamas changes and still fixed the pre-existing problems. So Romney IMO would not have achieved much either. In another 4yrs if Obama has helped to make a bigger mess then maybe a Romney is just what we need. Till then I just hope the current president helps to make a better America for the majority of Americans.

Also on the jobs that Romney was talking about... I don't feel it's the governments job to make these available in America. I chose a profession that I felt could not be outsourced easily to protect my future. I believe it's everyone's responsibility to pick professions that have long term potential. Where I live there are not shortage of jobs... There is a shortage of good jobs. So when I was in college I worked on a brick laying crew shoveling dirt beside mostly Hispanics (not even English speaking). Most Americans were told the pay and then quit midday because of how hard they had to work for the pay. I just viewed it as a way to pay for my schooling and pushed on. Since then have finished school and moved onto a better job (no issues finding one either).

For those that didn't want to read the above paragraph.. It all comes down to preparing yourself and taking care of your future. The government is a bonus if they are helping in this goal but primarily its about you and your ability to adapt.

It's very easy to say when the bleak future doesn't effect you. It has nothing to do with watching tv. Of course we all are on our own. It depends on how you measure success. Having lots of money may be success for you, while having a wife and kids could mean success for me.

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If you sit around and watch tv all day, all it is is doom and gloom. It's constant messages about how bad everything is and how we're all gonna die and how there's no hope at all. You can't convince me that a constant diet of that crap isn't going to affect your outlook in some way.

Of course we all have different ideas of success and that's fine. The attitude that you can't achieve your dreams (whatever they may be) because everything is so horrible and therefore why bother even trying is a problem. You may even try, but subconsciously sabotage your efforts because your attitude is that you're just going to fail.